This invention relates to a communication processing apparatus, a communication processing system and a communication processing method, in which the communication processing apparatus has a telephone, which serves as an audio input/output unit, a facsimile device equipped with an image/text input/output unit, a communication unit, an enciphering unit, a display unit and a touch-panel dial input unit, as well as an external storage device such as a hard disk, a photomagnetic disk or a digital audio tape.
In our information-oriented society which has seen remarkable progress in recent years, the existence of the facsimile machine is of growing importance in that it has the ability to transmit information accurately, rapidly and in mixed form. In terms of the transmission of information in mixed form, a so-called multimedia function, through which audio and images are capable of being sent and received by a single apparatus, is important in the sense that complex, diversified information may be processed in a skillful manner.
In a case where it is desired to record received audio or image data in advance or to edit audio data that has already been recorded even when a function for this purpose is not available, it is necessary to create audio data using a device such as a tape recorder.
More specifically, with a device such as the conventional facsimile machine, it is possible to send and receive audio using the attached telephone, and to send and receive images using a facsimile device. Thus, these two different media can be handled by a single device.
In recent years, however, the diversification of communication media has been accompanied by increasing demand for achieving an interrelationship between audio data and image data such as facsimile image data.
The enciphering of image data has long been known. Specifically, a value serving as a code is decided by negotiation prior to transmission of image data between the sending and receiving sides. This value is preset on the sending and receiving sides. On the sending side, the value serving as the code is scrambled with the image data before the transmission is made. On the receiving side, the received data that has been enciphered based upon the value serving as the code is converted to reproduce the original image.
When audio and image data are communicated in interrelated form in the prior art described above, an absolute requirement is that the receiving party be present at the facsimile machine at the time that the image data are transmitted. This places a severe restriction upon the side receiving the data.
If the received audio and image data are stored in a memory device in inter-related form, a tape recorder is required in addition to the facsimile machine, and the separately recorded or stored data must be properly arranged and managed on the receiving side. This is a very troublesome task.
In a case where transmitted audio data are recorded in advance or already recorded audio data are edited, a tape recorder is required besides the facsimile machine. This is highly inconvenient.
Thus, in the prior art, the user is not furnished with a useful function through which audio, namely a voice message for supplementing an image, and the image are processed in interrelated form.